


unsafe

by Maiden_of_the_Moon



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Trans Martin Blackwood, Unplanned Pregnancy, no beta we die like men, season five
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_the_Moon/pseuds/Maiden_of_the_Moon
Summary: Oh,Martin realizes, swaying on his aching feet.This ismynightmare.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 20
Kudos: 151





	unsafe

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: No. 
> 
> Author’s Note: Behold(ing), an idea that I don’t know what to do with. Can’t even say I like it. Yet here I am, sharing it. I'm sorry. 
> 
> Tags/Warnings: Trans Martin, unplanned pregnancy, season five. (Re: CW and spoilers, up to 173.) Written and edited and posted in like two hours.

\---

unsafe

\---

It is while standing on the eldritch approximation of a stoop that the irony of the “safehouse” occurs to Martin. It strikes him suddenly and hard— like a kick in the stomach— and with such visceral absurdity that he hears himself start to laugh.

Not that it’s funny. Nothing about this is funny. Well, except remembering everything that ever made Martin nervous or anxious or panic near a field of sweet highland cows, and comparing those worries to the literal apocalyptic wasteland that he now finds himself on the cusp of traversing with his harbinger boyfriend. 

It’s laugh or cry, isn’t it? That’s what they say, anyway. And he’s sick of crying. 

Jon glances back at him, a hand still on the cottage’s door. Probably been trying to figure out if it’s worth locking up. For all his many eyes, Jon still only has the two eyebrows; he lifts one and waits to be told the joke. 

“It was a _safe_ house,” Martin snickers. He _isn’t_ crying; crying doesn’t solve anything. Sure, there are tears in his eyes, but they aren’t of sadness. They aren’t of mirth, either. Nor fury, nor fear. No, he thinks, if anything, they are probably born from madness: “A _safe_ house. But we weren’t _safe!_ ”

Jon, as usual, Knows far more than he understands. So when he smiles sadly, having already assumed the fault for the danger they’re now in, Martin lets him. Doesn’t explain the real punchline. 

He can’t stop laughing.

-

“I mean, I don’t want to keep secrets from you, but—”

“You should at least— be able to.” 

“Basically, yeah!” is what Martin says. 

It is not what Martin thinks. 

What Martin thinks—very quietly, almost inaudibly, just in case he’s not alone in his own head— is: 

_At least for a little while longer, yes. At least until it’s no longer relevant. At least until there’s an end to this, or an end to me, or an end to us both, and this tiny secret growing inside me becomes a moot point of data in a billion other, more tragic losses._

Wryly, Martin muses how that might make the start of a half-way decent poem, if he felt up to putting pen to paper. But no, he’s still feeling sick from the merry-go-round. 

And other things.

-

Martin does not like to hear about Oliver Banks.

He does not like feeling angry, he does not like feeling jealous. He does not like feeling like an overly emotional cliché from some cheesy Hallmark movie. 

But when his mind isn’t busy churning out gratuitous hormones, it has been turning over thoughts. About population. About death. About... the opposite of death. Questions and hypotheses and things that he wants to know, that he _needs_ to know, that he is certain Jon would Know, but no—

No. Martin can’t ask. He _can’t_. It’d look suspicious if he did; Jon would want context. Jon would _deserve_ context. 

_Jon deserves to know,_ Martin admits, if only to himself, with an intentionally lowercase ‘k.’ _Jon deserves to know this, no matter how much it will hurt. No matter how much_ worse _it will make things. No matter how much it scares me to tell him._

Unconsciously, he squeezes Jon’s hand where it is tangled around his own.

Something black and long and serpentine tightens around Martin’s heart when Jon squeezes back.

-

It is during one of their infrequent rests that the first epiphany strikes.

 _Ultimately_ , Martin recognizes, startled by this moment of clarity, _it doesn’t matter if I understand what’s happening, or why, or how._ For as much as rules are ever applicable in a nightmare, they do not seem to apply to Jon. By proxy, then, they do not apply to him. 

_In that sense_ , he decides, _it really doesn’t matter, does it, how this world would “normally” handle my… situation._

It is when they are standing up again, preparing to press on, that a second, tangential epiphany leaves Martin nauseous and weak.

 _Oh,_ he realizes, swaying on his aching feet. _This is_ my _nightmare._

-

It was curiosity. It _had_ to be curiosity. Martin may not be the Archivist, may not be a true Avatar of Beholding, but he is not untouched by the Eye; he is a purveyor and connoisseur of knowledge in his own right. And motivated as he is now, well—

“I was going to suggest that I could… maybe… Know.” 

There is so much that Martin wants-needs- _desperately wishes_ to know. 

“I could look.”

There is so much that he wants-needs- _desperately wishes_ to keep from Jon. 

“Just a quick peek to— to see if it was just curiosity or—” 

Deep in the safety and warmth of Martin’s core, there is a beating, tangled knot: a snarl of sentiment and suspicion that he refuses to compare to a spider’s web. In the same vein, he ignores the arachnoid twitch of his fingers as he clutches at the belly of his shirt— tries to overlook the lucent threads of paranoia that forever connect Annabelle Cane to the chaos that she may or may not be weaving. 

“...something else.” 

Even now, Martin’s ears ring with the echo of bells. Of promises. Implications and consequences quicken his pulse, and he steadfastly refuses to contemplate the many ways in which two people can be manipulated. 

“Well?”

Martin opens his mouth, and wonders how much rope a person really needs to hang himself.

-

“What do you think happened to all the children when the world changed? Or were you not thinking about it?”

If there was ever any proof that Jon was keeping his word, was keeping out of Martin’s headspace, then this is it. Martin wants to vomit. He wants to scream.

Martin wants— no, needs— no, desperately wishes— no, _has to_ know. 

Martin has to know. 

_He has to know._

-

“Jon.”

The world around them is dark, but no longer Dark. Terror adds something heady and oppressive to the cool, stale air. Above, Martin notices the corners of the Nietzschean abyss begin to crinkle, as if warped by Knowing smiles.

Jon turns, ever-weary, and lifts one of his two eyebrows. 

Martin swallows. 

“I… There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

\---


End file.
